


Un-Tangled

by happyaspie



Series: Tony Stark is a Good Mentor [39]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Conversations, Dialogue Heavy, Precious Peter Parker, Random & Short, Tangled (2010) References, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22997260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyaspie/pseuds/happyaspie
Summary: Peter has to improvise during one of his patrols and decides to tell his mentor about it.  Tony is, as always, amused by the conversation.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark is a Good Mentor [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1397362
Comments: 16
Kudos: 280





	Un-Tangled

It was Friday afternoon and Peter was supposed to be working on his homework in the corner of the lab. However, rather than completing the second half of the practice equations he'd been assigned, Peter sighed and set his pencil down. "What are you doing, Mr. Stark?", he asked as he looked across the lab to where the man was elbow deep in a pile of plugs and wires.

"Why? Do you need some help?", Tony asked, absentmindedly as he continued to comb through the mess in front of him. The kid had never needed help with his homework before but, hey, there was a first time for everything he supposed.

"Of course not!", Peter scoffed as he looked down at the incomplete worksheet. "It's just basic calculus but they want you to write out every single step that you took to solve it, which is stupid because if the answer is right who cares how you got it, right? I'm just _bored_.", Peter complained but it didn't seem like his mentor was going to be taking any pity on him at the moment.

Tony hummed in acknowledgment but never actually looked up from his task. "Well, be bored faster so you can get over here and help me. You're taking too long.", he said with a deep sigh. He'd been trying to pull apart the knotted mountain of strands for quite a while and was looking forward to having an extra set of hands to help him sort it out. He knew he could just toss the entire cluster out and buy new ones but he'd already started the project and planned to finish it. He was just stubborn like that.

"Fine. I only have ten left.", Peter replied before spinning his chair back around and picked back up his pencil. Though, he only made it through a few more of the problems before he was turning back around towards his mentor. "Hey, Mr. Stark? Did I tell you what happened on patrol last Tuesday?", he called out with glee even though he knew he'd not told the man about it yet. They had only spoken briefly since then and it was to reschedule his Thursday lab day to Friday. The conversation had been limited to that one subject. There had been no room to talk about any interesting patrols at the time. 

Tony looked up and pursed his lips. "You finished the rest of that already? That seemed awfully fast.", he skeptically spoke. He knew the kid was good at math but it couldn't have been more than ten minutes. Even he couldn't fully write out a set of calculus solutions at the rate of one per minute. 

"Ugh, first I'm taking too long and now I'm going too fast? Which is it?", Peter laughed rather than answering the actual question.

"Depends. Are you really done?", Tony asked with a quirk of his brow but the wide eyes look he was receiving from across the room told him everything he needed to know. He was definitely _not_ done.

"I-- Almost.", Peter said but when the man continued to look at him expectantly he turned back towards his worksheet with a sigh. The remaining problems didn't take too long and soon he was up and crossing the room towards his mentor. "There. I'm finished. Can I Tell you _now_?"

"Sure.", Tony said with a small grunt as he tried to pull one of the larger cables from the pile. "Then you're going to help me organize this and _before you ask_... I blame DUM-E. He's lucky he didn't end up being donated to the local college.", he added with a huff but Peter knew the man would never in a million years do anything like that. 

"You like DUM-E too much to get rid of him.", Peter said with a smile as he looked across the room towards the robot who was currently in the corner with a large dunce cap sitting on top of him. He almost felt sorry for him.

"He's a pain in my rear end.", Tony retorted before looking up at where Peter was standing beside him and then waved his hand in the air. "I thought you had some wild story to tell me. Let's go. The quicker you get it out the quicker we can get this done."

"Yeah, yeah yeah...! Alright.", Peter eagerly replied. "So. On Tuesday night, while I was patrolling I heard people calling for help outside one of the restaurants on 5th Street. The problem was it was almost my curfew, it had been a _really_ busy night and I was--", he started.

"--If you're about to tell me you were tired then I'm about to tell you I'm a girl scout.", Tony quipped with a shake of his head and a smirk across his face. The kid was never tired. Even when he was tired he wasn't tired. The boy had boundless energy that could last for days at a time, he was sure of it. He was also sure that if he could find a way to bottle and sell it, he would be upgraded to a _trillionaire_ in two days flat.

Peter scoffed and sat down on the floor beside his mentor. "I was _going to say_ I was running low on web fluid.", he said.

Nodding his head, Tony went back to working with his hands. "That makes more sense. Make another hammock?", he teased while shaking his head at the memory. That had made the front page the next day. ' _Spider-man Asleep on the Job_ ' He'd cut it out and had it framed just for the fun of it. He was never going to let that go, ever. 

"That was one time, Mr. Stark and I already said it had been a busy night!", Peter returned with a pout. He'd already learned not to mess around _too much_ with his web fluid. Not when there was a chance that people could be taking his picture anyway. Any and all hammocks were now constructed in the far corner of his bedroom away from the window.

"Fine.", Tony replied with a laugh. "Go on, then. What happened?"

"I got inside and there were six guys there trying to steal the cash register. _Six!_ All of them there to take, like, five hundred dollars. It seemed a bit excessive if you ask me but it was fine.", Peter animatedly explained as his knees bounced with excitement. "Only half of them were armed and--"

That got Tony's attention and his head snapped up from what he was doing. "--Why didn't you just call the police?", he interjected. The last thing the kid needed to be doing was going after armed robbers without enough webs. While the boy had great reflexes and dexterity, a lot of his tactics were heavily dependant on his web-shooters. 

"I was already there and I just said it was fine. I had it under control.", Peter replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Without web fluid? Isn't webbing them up kind of your shtick.", Tony asked with barely masked concern. 

"I wasn't _out,_ Mr. Stark. I was _low_... there's a difference.", Peter said with a roll of his eyes and when he was sure his mentor wasn't going to question him any further he moved on. "So I had enough to take down the first five guys, right? It was super easy. I got the weapons and then webbed them to the floor. Then I was like, _'Thwip_ '--", he stated, adding the hand motion in for emphasis.

"--I'm sorry. Did you just say ' _Thwip_ '?", Tony asked with amusement.

"Yeah.", Peter said with a look of pure confusion. "That's the sound the webs make when you shoot them. ' _Thwip_ '.", he reiterated but when Tony continued to smile at him he let out a deep breath through his nose. "What? Onomonatpia makes stories more interesting! I'm being _descriptive_ , Mr. Stark" 

Tony chuckled and reached over to give the kid a pacifying pat on the shoulder. "Okay, Spider-boy. How did you take out the last guy without your ability to ' _Thwip'_.", he asked but all Peter did was stare back at him.

"Mr. Stark... that's, that's not how you use that...", Peter began before deciding that he wasn't going to take the time to explain _how sound effects worked_. "Actually, whatever, it's fine. Back to the story. _Anyway_ , I was standing there thinking, ' _Oh god, what do I do?_ ', and then I saw a heavy frying pan thingy sitting on the counter and I remembered that movie, Tangled. You know the Disney one with Repunzel and--", he began to ask.

"--Yes, I know Tangled. You made me watch it just a couple of weeks ago.", Tony replied with another roll of his eyes. The kid was always making him sit down and watch movies because, _'You have to see this, Mr. Stark! It's a good one and you're missing out!'_ and he always humored him because, well, he wasn't sure why but he did. 

seeing as he'd never been never sure how his movie picks had really gone over, Peter dropped his gaze to the floor and began picking at his shoelaces. The man always gave him a hard time and then rather than insisting on something else, turned on whatever it was he's suggested. He just sort of assumed that from there, the man sort of tuned it all out. That he was just humoring him. "Well, I didn't know if you were actually paying attention.", Peter mumbled under his breath. 

"I'm _always_ paying attention.", Tony said with a soft smile. No matter how silly or childish the film ended up being, he always paid attention to it. Then taking a moment to think back to that particular movie, he smiled to himself. It didn't take long to decide that he knew exactly where this story was going. "So what did you do whack the guy in the face with the skillet?"

For a second Peter blinked back at the man in awe. He was actually fairly surprised the man had actually committed that much of the children's animated movie to memory. Then he shook that thought from his head in favor of answering the question. "Not the face! I'm not _that_ mean.", he said with forced seriousness that rapidly turned into giddy excitement. "Just the back of his head and then ' _Bam!_ ', he went down like a ton of bricks and I was like, ' _Oh my god, I had no idea that would actually work!_ ' because you know... _Tangled isn't real._ "

"Kid you have super strength. You could have hit the guy with a dishtowel and knocked him out.", Tony replied with a chuckle. 

"I guess it's a good thing I held back then, huh.", Peter said with a cheeky smile. Despite the fact that he'd not been sure that hitting the guy with the pan would be enough to stop him he'd pulled the punch _just in case_. The thing had to have been at least eight pounds.

"Hmm.", Tony said with ambiguity. "So what happened after that? I'm assuming he stayed down until the police got there...", he asked out of curiosity.

Peter shrugged his shoulders and pulled his knees up to his chest where he sat. "I don't know I tied him up with some butchers twine and then headed home."

"Do you usually wait for the police to take your sticky handed friends away before you take off swinging?", Tony asked because he was almost sure that the kid typically hid out somewhere so that he could watch the police do their part of the job before moving on. Said it was 'fun'.

"Yeah, but I had a really long way to walk and I didn't want to get home late. Aunt May would kill me.", Peter said as if that should have been obvious. 

Tony nodded his head in understanding. The boy's aunt was something else. He wouldn't want to be on her bad side either. "How far of a walk was it?", he asked because it must have been a fair distance if the kid didn't think he could get home in any kind of a timely manner.

"Um... about eight miles?", Peter waveringly replied. His AI had sent him on the fastest route and it was actually closer to twelve miles but he wasn't sure he wanted to tell Tony that. The man had a tendency to overreact. 

"Why didn't you call a cab or an Uber, a Lyft... something?", Tony asked because even though he was well aware that eight miles were nothing when it came to the kid's stamina and speed, he couldn't help but think that a ride would be _safer._ The boy had already been out of web fluid and that was his best defense. 

"Well, there's not exactly anywhere for me to keep a wallet in my Spider-suit...", Peter replied with a wide smile. 

"We can fix that.", Tony returned with a verbal shrug. They needed to make some upgrades anyway. The kid already needed a better place to keep his phone. The screen on the one he had was so cracked that he wasn't sure how the boy could even begin to read the eight million messages he received on a daily basis. 

Peter nodded his head and gave a slightly nervous laugh. "There's also no money in the wallet so it wouldn't have made a difference anyway."

"We can fix that too.", Tony replied with an encouraging, almost pleading, smile.

"Or we can fix it so that my belt holds more web canisters.", Peter came back with a flourish of his hand. Really that was the more reasonable thing to do. The man did enough for him already, he didn't need an _allowance_. "I don't want your money, Mr. Stark."

Already knowing that the kid was going to decline any offer that involved being handed cash, Tony sighed and turned his attention back to the wires. "Fine. We can do it your way.", he said as he tracked one of the coils until he managed to locate one of it's ends.

"Awesome! Should I get my suit out of my bag?", Peter said as he hopped up onto his feet in one smooth motion.

"Uh, that wasn't the deal, Repunzel.", Tony said with his eyebrows raised. "I said I would listen to your story and then you were going to help me get all of this...", he started before pausing to gesture towards the massive pile in front of him. "... _Un-Tangled_."

Nodding his head, Peter sat back down and started to pick apart two of the smaller wires that were sticking out of the bunch. "Then we can upgrade the belt on my suit, right?", he asked with enthusiasm.

"Yep. Make sure you have all the essentials... a few extra slots to store web fluid , a _padded_ pocket for you phone and a nice place for you to put your brand new--", Tony smiled teasingly.

"--Don't say it!", Peter interjected as he realized exactly what the man was about to say. Though no amount of glaring seemed to be enough to keep the man from grinning at him.

"...Back-up skillet.", he finished and was rewarded when Peter dramatically flopped backward onto the floor with a whine.

_"It was one time!"_


End file.
